Today In History

Born in 1928 in Pittsburgh, his original name was Andrew Warhola. After high school he studied commercial art at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh and then in 1949 went to New York where he worked as an illustrator for magazines like Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. He soon became one of New York's most successful commercial illustrators. In 1952 Andy Warhol had his first one-man show exhibition at the Hugo Gallery in New York, and in 1956 he had an important group exhibition at the renowned Museum of Modern Art. In the sixties when he became a famous figure in the New York art scene he was painting daily objects of mass production like Campbell Soup cans and Coke bottles. He then started making silkscreen prints of famous personalities like Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor. Andy Warhol removed the difference between fine arts and the commercial arts used for magazine illustrations, comic books, record albums and advertising campaigns. He once expressed his philosophy in one poignant sentence:

Singer – Songwriter, Carole King At the age of 18, Carole King had her first chart topper as a songwriter with ‘Will You Love Me Tomorrow’, co-written with Gerry Goffin, the two eventually married and divorced. Over the years, the two wrote dozens of popular songs for a variety of singers, many of which became standards in American popular culture. In 1997, King co-wrote ‘The Reason’ for Celine Dion, a hit of epic proportions. Though she was born in February of 1942, Carole King did not become successful as a performer until the 1970s. Like many musicians before her, King experienced disappointment with the release of her first album, entitled ‘Writer.’ Her redemption, however, came with the album ‘Tapestry’ which topped the U.S. charts for 15 weeks in 1971 and was one of the longest running chart toppers until the record was broken by Whitney Houston. King’s catalog includes 25 solo albums. Most recently, she and James Taylor created and released ‘Live at the Troubadour’, a very successful collaboration that sold in excess of 600,000 copies. Over the years King has been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of fame, the Songwriters Hall of fame and been awarded four Grammy’s.